Page 17 of Flames and Blood

He doesn’t look convinced.

“Sit down and keep your head lowered.”

He sits down against the wall. He doesn’t argue. I’m gone before he gets a chance to look up again.

This keeps getting stranger. I barely notice the cells as I pass, or the guard still out cold on the floor on my way out.

The phone buzzes in my coat before I’ve cleared the yard.

“Faine,” I say.

“Tell me what you found.” She never gives a preamble.

“The building’s empty. They cleared it and left two men on the gate. There’s a shelf of ledgers in the intake room and nothing written in any of them. Only one intake on the records.”

“One?”

“One prisoner. That’s all this place ever held.”

“Go on.”

“There’s a transport order signed off a few hours ago. Where the destination should be, somebody’s written a route number and nothing else.”

“And the woman?”

“Gone before we got here. A man came in and examined her while she was here. One of the guards stood on the door through all of it.” I stop at the fence. “The guard says the man smelled the same as she did. Smoke.”

Faine says nothing.

“He’s a dragon,” I say.

“You’re sure of that?”

“The boy doesn’t know what he told me. He wasn’t inventing it.”

The line stays quiet long enough that I check the screen.

“Then this isn’t a trafficking job,” she says. “A dragon working inside a blood pipeline is Syndicate.”

“I know.”

“Then you know why I’m taking Odile back tonight.”

“She’s in the middle of an operation.”

“She’s a rank at my table. She sits where people can see her sitting. The night somebody notices her chair is empty, they start asking where she is and what she’s doing and who she’s doing it with.” A pause. “I can’t have a Court rank standing in the middle of a Syndicate matter. Not seen doing it, and not doing it quietly either.”

“There’s more.”

“There’s always more. The Cravens want the same thing. They’re running their own search for the girl, and they’ve been plain about the terms. They don’t want it known that they’re working alongside vampires. This is one of their own, and they lose face if they bring us into an internal issue. If my people are seen on this, that ends, and so does anything they’d have given us.”

“So Odile goes home and sits at your table, and everything looks the way it looked last month.”

“Yes. Nothing is happening, and she’s the proof of it.”

“And me?”

“You keep going.” Flat. No weight on it at all. “Nobody has to admit you exist, Crowe. You’re a free agent. If you’re seen, you’re a man doing something of your own. That’s the only useful thing about your position, and I suggest you use it.”